China sends 1,000 boats armada to disputed island chain

Around 1,000 fishing boats have been mobilised by China to sail to an island
chain controlled by Japan, as the quarrel between the two countries fuelled
a seventh day of protests.

Chinese fishing boats set off to fish near the disputed Diaoyu Islands, also known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan, from Shipu fishing port in Xiangshan county, east China's Zhejiang provincePhoto: AFP

A number of Japanese businesses on Monday suspended their Chinese operations.

Chinese fishing boats, which often seem suspiciously well-drilled and organised, have clashed with the Japanese coastguard over the Diaoyu, or Senkaku, islands before, but never in such numbers.

They were expected to arrive on Monday night, according to the state-run China News Service, and may also be joined by six Chinese maritime patrol ships, which briefly entered Japanese waters last Friday in a show of defiance.

The spat over the islands, which has been rumbling for decades, intensified last week after Japan announced it had bought some of the archipelago for the nation from a private Japanese family.

That enraged China, which also claims sovereignty over the chain. Over the weekend, tens of thousands of Chinese protested in more than 50 cities, overturning Japanese cars and burning the Japanese flag.

On Monday, protests continued in Beijing, but were significantly smaller. However, a number of Japanese businesses have suspended their China operations until the situation calms down.

Panasonic, Canon, Honda, Mazda and Toyota have all stilled their factories, while almost 200 “7-11” convenience stores have shut and Uniqlo, the clothes retailer, has removed all the signs from its shop and shut its doors. One of Panasonic’s factories had been sabotaged by its own workers.

“I want to leave,” said a Nissan executive, who declined to be named, to Reuters in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. “Protests near my home were horrifying over the weekend.”

Some of the protests have been violent, while others involved vandalism, looting and arson. A man torched his Honda Civic outside one of the Japanese carmaker’s showrooms in Shanghai. However, there have been no reports so far of serious injuries to Japanese citizens in China.

The anger is likely to flare up again on Tuesday, the 81st anniversary of the Mukden incident, in which the Japanese army blew up a railway in Manchuria to serve as a pretext for an invasion.

Leon Panetta, the United States Defence secretary, said in Tokyo that both sides should calm down.

“It is in everybody’s interest ... for Japan and China to maintain good relations and to find a way to avoid further escalation,” he said.

Mr Panetta also disclosed he would meet Xi Jinping, China’s president-in-waiting, on Wednesday in Beijing. Mr Xi has only recently reappeared after a two-week unexplained absence from the public eye.

The Chinese media has now called for public calm, and a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign ministry said the government would protect Japanese firms and citizens.

However, he added: “The gravely destructive consequences of Japan’s illegal purchase of the Diaoyu Islands are steadily emerging, and the responsibility for this should be born by Japan.”

The rising tide of nationalism comes as both China and Japan prepare for transitions of leadership, and as both struggle with weakening economies.

China also warned there could be an “economic war” between the two countries.

“Japan’s economy will suffer severely if China were to impose sanctions on it. China’s loss would be relatively less,” said Jin Baisong, an analyst at a think tank linked to China’s ministry of Commerce. The headline of the piece: “Consider Sanctions on Japan.”

China is Japan’s largest trading partner, and exports from Japan to China amounted to 2.7 per cent of Japanese GDP last year. Total bilateral trade was £212 billion. Already, companies have reported that sales of Japanese cars and electronics have fallen in the last month.

However, Japan is also China’s third-largest export market, behind the US and Europe, and is a major investor in China. More than 3.6 million Japanese tourists visited China last year, while China sent one million tourists the other way.